Baltimore drug epidemic rages on as city health officials run low on naloxone…”‘Heroin Capital’ of the United States”

Thursday, June 22, 2017
By Paul Martin

by: Bridgette Wilcox
NaturalNews.com
Thursday, June 22, 2017

Baltimore’s supply of the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone is running low, leaving the Maryland city to sink even deeper into a drug epidemic that has been raging for decades.

City health officials have only about 4,000 doses of the drug left — a supply meant to last until May next year, BaltimoreSun.com reported. The remaining naloxone doses are now being rationed, given out two at a time to residents, especially drug users and those who live in areas where the incidence of overdose is high. The idea is to equip bystanders to be first responders when an overdose occurs.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, naloxone restores normal breathing in those who have overdosed on opioids. It can be administered by friends, family, and bystanders to anyone in need through an injection or nasal spray.

The city’s low supply of naloxone is especially troubling considering that the city received 1,945 naloxone claims in the first three months of 2017 and has about 21,000 active heroin users.

Naloxone is available in retail pharmacies, albeit at great cost for those without insurance coverage who are charged $45 for a shot and $110 for a nasal spray in CVS. These prices considered, the drug is hardly affordable to those who are most at risk of an overdose, many of whom are part of Baltimore’s low-income bracket.

Understandably, Baltimore’s emergency responders, particularly firemen and paramedics, have the biggest supply of naloxone in the city, and have been instructed to administer the drug to any patient who is not breathing, in case the problem may have been caused by an opioid overdose. The Baltimore Fire Department orders 18,750 units of naloxone annually, an amount costing about $675,000.

Baltimore city health commissioner Leana Wen has written to the Maryland state health department, requesting for a portion of the $10 million fund that the state received from the recently passed 21st Century Care Act.

“We need funds now,” Wen was quoted as saying in the BaltimoreSun.com article. “It seems unconscionable at a time of public health emergency, when there is an antidote readily available and can save lives, that we have to ration.”

‘Heroin Capital’ of the United States

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